Radiance
by Lady Papillon Rose
Summary: A trip to the mall with Mabel and her friends gives Dipper and Pacifica the chance to spend more time together. Fluff ensues, while Dipper alternates between being smooth and realizing he's being smooth then being awkward over it.


AN: Following 'Eye Contact'. Pretty much all of my Dipifica is set in the same continuity for character development purposes. Also the fluff potential for these two is sky-high. : )

Note: I essentially pushed the Apocalypse countdown for Not What He Seems forward by a few weeks.

* * *

At 3:45PM on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday afternoon, Mabel Pines found love.

More specifically, she noticed the _absolutely stunning_ young man sitting on the other side of the food court, eating a slice of pepperoni pizza and fooling around on his smartphone. He didn't appear to be much older than she and her brother, sporting a head of soft-looking chocolate-colored locks and the kind of cheeks that were oh so kissable.

It was love at first sight. Or like. Like? Maybe like. She'd learned to be just a little more discerning after the Gabe debacle.

It also wasn't a completely unremarkable afternoon, given that the trio of herself, Candy, and Grenda also included her brother Dipper and her former frenemy turned actual friend, Pacifica.

"He's so _perfect_," she swooned, clasping her hands together over her chest. Candy and Grenda followed suit, with Candy commenting, equally awed, "He is a real dreamboat!"

Dipper glanced over at Pacifica, shaking his head ever so slightly. The message was loud and clear: don't get involved. Pacifica stared back for a moment before diverting her attention back to whatever she was looking at on her phone.

"You should go talk to him!" Grenda encouraged, placing her hands on Mabel's shoulders supportively.

"What do I say?" Mabel moaned, melodramatically. She'd never been stumped for brilliant pick-up lines or flirtation techniques, but this situation required precision. "I like his hair. Should I tell him I like his hair?"

Candy's face lit up with a sweet smile. "Tell him his eyes are like burning stars in the night sky."

Mabel and Grenda responded with appreciative 'aww's that faded to silence as Candy continued, just as brightly, "And you want to pluck them from his face and preserve them for future generations."

Dipper choked on his soda, spraying Pit Cola across the table, and Pacifica failed to feign disinterest any longer, looking up at the three of them warily.

"That's a little _too _intense, Candy," Mabel said, with a nervous laugh.

Dipper reached for the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, then opted for a napkin after catching Pacifica's eye. "Please don't say that. Chances are he'll call security and I don't want to end up down at the county jail again."

Pacifica turned her attention to him. "You were in jail?"

"It's a long story."

Meanwhile, Mabel seemed to have gathered her courage, standing up and pushing her chair back. "Okay, Mabel, you can do this."

"You are the Angel of Love!" Candy cried, joined by Grenda's "Go get him!"

At that point Dipper turned away, sighing. "Trust me, it's all downhill from here," he muttered to Pacifica; whereas he'd have been expecting some kind of nasty comment earlier that summer she merely laughed, not unkindly. Dipper liked it when she laughed.

Seeing as Candy and Grenda were occupied watching Mabel introduce herself to the latest object of her affections, he took the chance he'd been waiting for all afternoon, stealing glances at the blonde girl inbetween supplying the group with his usual brand of snarky commentary and pretending that he was only there because Mabel dragged him out of the Shack. This was a lie given that he'd almost tripped over the carpet volunteering to come along when Mabel announced that she'd asked Pacifica whether she wanted to hang out and she'd accepted.

If Mabel noticed anything, she'd decided to keep it to herself for now.

"So," he began, as casually as he could muster, "You want to walk around for a bit?"

"Don't you want to make a break for it?" Pacifica asked, innocently. "Now's your chance."

"Uh." Dipper mentally flailed, all casualness going right out the window as he realized the fatal flaw in his earlier ruse. "What I meant was…um…"

Pacifica smirked, dropping her phone back in her purse. "You're such a dork, Dipper. Come on."

Dipper's heart literally skipped a beat as she grabbed his hand, tugging him out of his chair and off in a random direction before Mabel's friends noticed.

Normally Dipper absolutely _hated_ the mall, but it was hard to hate anything walking hand in hand with Pacifica; he'd expected her to let go after they'd successfully evaded Candy and Grenda, but she didn't, and despite the fact that his was now probably gross and sweaty he didn't push it. If she didn't mind holding his hand in public, he certainly wasn't going to complain about it.

There was also the fact that she seemed a lot happier than he'd ever seen her, a kind of genuine happiness that made her radiant in his eyes. Her sarcasm and wit remained, now turned on various stores and their wares or some of the other teenage specimens lurking moodily in the corners instead of him, and it was just as fun talking to her as it had been when they'd last spent time together a little over a week ago. Without any particular destination Dipper allowed her to lead him from one interesting spot to another; one dark hole playing dreary music that appeared to cater to the aforementioned teenagers, a tea shop where they drank samples of rooibos tea in tiny paper cups while the wizened old woman behind the counter glared daggers at them, a clothing store that was probably a portal to the 80's where they shuddered in unison at the pink fuzzy legwarmers and horrifying Day-Glo crop tops.

He noticed that she avoided the expensive stores he'd have expected her to frequent; she also didn't buy anything, and at some point he spoke up while they took a brief break on a bench, watching a kid have a tantrum while his mother loudly threatened to eat him and start over. "Are we just window shopping?"

"Hm?" Pacifica continued to watch the spectacle unfolding before them.

"You haven't actually bought anything."

"Oh." She glanced over at him. "I don't need to."

Dipper wasn't sure how to take the comment, be it a reassertion of the fact that she was richer than he and Mabel would ever be or not until she added, looking back at the mother and her screaming son, "I don't need anything else right now."

The message was loud and clear, and in that moment Dipper stumbled and fell in love. It reminded him vaguely of how he'd felt around Wendy earlier that summer except this was different. There was an intensity to it that was new, and his skin prickled where his arm met hers.

Their next stop was a pet store; there were too many people inside for them to enter, but Pacifica paused at the entrance. One of the open displays held a small rabbit with silky white fur and black ears. The dark fur around its eyes reminded Dipper of makeup. It was ridiculously cute.

Pacifica's eyes softened as she reached into the display, running a hand over the rabbit's back. The rabbit's ears perked up, its motorized nose lifting in her direction.

"You like rabbits?" Dipper asked, a little surprised. She'd never struck him as someone that liked animals.

She nodded, still petting the rabbit. "My parents would never let me have one. Mother says they're filthy and they destroy the furniture."

There was a wistfulness in her voice that made Dipper tighten his grip on the hand he was holding. "Is that all they care about?"

Pacifica didn't answer; the rabbit tilted its head upward as she ran her fingers over the soft fur between its ears.

"Well…they're not here right now," Dipper said, firmly. "I am." His preteen awkwardness decided to rear its head again, and he added, quickly, "I mean we are."

"I know what you meant."

A few minutes after leaving the pet store they found themselves in front of the arcade, with the noise of various games spilling out and flashing lights illuminating the large room.

"You know, I've never been in here before." Pacifica remarked.

Dipper stiffened. He let go of her hand, looking at her intently. "Seriously? This is your first time in an arcade?"

Pacifica's smile faded, replaced with a guarded expression. "So?"

Dipper grinned.

As it turned out, despite her lack of experience with video games somehow Pacifica had the kind of hand-eye coordination and attention to detail that Dipper could only dream of. He looked on in awe as she wasted the guy she was fighting in Lethal Conflict 5; the moment he'd showed her the controls and helped her choose a character she'd proceeded with a reign of domination that made his geeky little heart beat faster than was probably healthy. "How are you so good at this? I thought this was your first time playing."

"It is," Pacifica mumbled; on screen her character, Zhu Li, released a deadly bolt of lightning from her palms, frying the green-skinned, heavily muscled Hulk ripoff she was facing off against. "I'm a woman of many tale…NO!" She bristled as the faux-Hulk bent her character over his swollen knee and broke her back like so. "I want a rematch!"

Dipper cringed. "Are you sure?"

Pacifica's response was to reach into her purse and pull out a twenty-dollar bill and toss it at him, still glaring at the screen.

"I'll go get change."

Half an hour later Zhu Li rained fire from the sky and incinerated what appeared to be the devil on a bad hair day, and Dipper lost his cool, hugging her. "You're amazing. That was amazing. I've never even gotten past that guy with the toasters for hands. You're _awesome_."

Pacifica swelled with pride, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

The High Score list scrolled over the screen, with the three spaces at top blinking. Pacifica frowned. "Only three letters?"

"Hm." Dipper nudged her to the side gently, taking the controls and entering a couple of letters.

"Paz?" Pacifica's brow furrowed. "Where'd that come from?"

"Sounds like a good nickname to me," Dipper said, finalizing the entry. "Otherwise you're stuck with PEN and that's kinda lame."

Pacifica thought about it for a moment before shrugging. "I guess."

At that point Dipper realized they'd been gone for at least an hour and a half, and sighed, regretfully. "We should probably head back. We might have to bail Mabel out."

"What about her friends?"

"Candy's idea of flirting involves threatening to remove a dude's eyes," Dipper quipped. "I think she'll be fine."

As they made their way out of the arcade, something in a nearby claw machine caught Dipper's eye. He stopped walking, and Pacifica looked back at him, questioningly. "Dipper?"

"I left something back there," Dipper said hastily. "Go on without me and I'll meet you back at the food court."

Pacifica's face fell, and there was a hint of disappointment in her voice as she responded with a slightly huffy "Fine."

Dipper watched her walk away, with the realization dawning on him that she'd wanted to walk back with him. It only strengthened his resolve, and as he reached into his pocket for a handful of change he narrowed his eyes at the machine looming before him ominously. "Let's do this."

By the time he reached the food court, out of breath from running, a good twenty minutes had gone by. He spotted Pacifica sitting alone at a table, strangely downcast, and hurried over to her. She met his gaze, clearly upset, but Dipper had the feeling it wasn't meant for him. "Where were you?" she demanded. "My parents called freaking out. They sent the chauffeur and everything."

"Yikes." At least her anger wasn't directed at him, but it was still upsetting to _him_ to see the radiance from earlier having faded. She was Pacifica _Northwest_ again instead of just Pacifica, and he was rapidly coming to understand the difference between the two. He liked her regardless, but he preferred the latter. "Sorry if we got you in trouble."

Pacifica waved her hand, smiling, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Don't be. I had fun."

It occurred to Dipper that he was forgetting something, and he cast his gaze over the food court nervously. "Oh crap, where's Mabel?"

On the opposite side of the food court he saw his sister, sitting with Grenda and chatting animatedly to the young man with his arm around Candy's shoulder. The smaller girl was beet red, occasionally glancing up at him and then looking away just as quickly. Mabel's face was lit up like the sun, and even at this distance he could tell that she was overjoyed for her friend. "Huh. Didn't see that coming."

Pacifica's ringtone chimed from within her purse, and she checked it, groaning. "Marco should be here in a few minutes."

Dipper extended his hand to her. "I'll walk you out."

Pacifica rolled her eyes. "Are you _really_ going to escort me to the parking lot?"

As she had earlier that afternoon, Dipper seized her hand and tugged her out of her seat. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't?"

The trip to the entrance of the mall was much too short, and Dipper felt his own mood dip once they stepped through the sliding doors. Pacifica hadn't said anything since they left the food court, so he wasn't expecting it when she spoke up, with her voice devoid of her usual confidence. "…I had a lot of fun. With you."

"Me too," Dipper agreed. "We should hang out more often."

"I don't have anything scheduled this Friday." She seemed to be making a point of not looking at him. "And Mother and Father will be out of town for the weekend."

Dipper responded in kind, unable to look at her as he stammered, feeling himself flush, "I don't either. So…this Friday?"

"This Friday."

In his disappointment at the afternoon ending so abruptly he'd forgotten what he'd picked up at the arcade after a fair amount of cursing under his breath and mentally threatening the claw machine; he remembered it at the last moment before the limousine pulled up in front of the mall and the chauffeur rushed over to open the door for her. "Oh! Here. I fought the claw machine and emerged victorious."

Pacifica's eyes widened as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a stuffed rabbit with white fur and black patches along its body, placing it in her arms.

"Your mother can't complain about this one," he joked.

Pacifica held the rabbit to her chest, staring down at it first, then back up at him. Dipper wasn't expecting the ferocity with which she hugged him, as if she didn't want to let go. He hugged her back, just as tightly, both of them ignoring the chauffeur clearing his throat irately.

He didn't want to let go either.


End file.
